Again another day from blogging from gmail. My friend Dragonfly can't blog today because so far she hasn't activated this feature, as so far she hadn't had the need for it. I urged her to do so as she gets home (then will urge her to hook it on the Buzz, so I still can get it and read it), so our daily share of her mind keeps coming our way.
Today's topic, however, is not another chapter of nuisance about trivial, annoying matters regarding the office, but a book I just finished yesterday, and which I can't but love. I do. I love it, and love it greatly. Said book is "Sun Storm" by Asa Larsson.
Ms. Larsson is a Swedish writer, born in 1966, who grew up in Kiruna, the stage of this fantastic story of hers, and studied law, as well as practiced it, which gives autenticity to her legal speech in her novels, and which she comfortably keeps rooted on the ground of "as less as possible, just as needed", which makes her writing fairly dinamic without lapsing into long, boring descriptions of legal procedures, which other writers with also a background in law can't seem to detach from.
Her style in this novel has a strike of modern-styles-clashing at the begining, with a Bernard Webber like first micro-chapter, with death welcoming us in the face. It seems like a book started from the end, and rolling out from there on. Visual in her descriptions, touching other senses without truly grasping them at the begining, shocking us, confusing us for starters, only to plunge us after into an annoying chapter of Sex and the City (SATC for the fans) in the frame of modern literature, which is basically a hug back of empty nonsense chaptered in small bites for the modern reader with the attention span of an ADD first grader, and all the profiles of characters up front. It does become disappointing for the more "traditional reader" to have the characters dished out at once, with no real reason then as to why should you know this or than in this particular moment of the story. Personal Advise? Work it into the story. Then, if you don't need it, don't write it. Like, do you really need to know the brand, color and fabric of a character's skirt? I mean, if she's going to the office, I can safely assume that she is dressed. If you want to point out that her clothes are expensive because she has such a great income, why don't just say so? Like, "she was dressed in one of her many Armany suits" or "unlike when she lived in Kiruna, now she wore only designer clothes, not like she even paid attention to that".
After the first chapters of awkwardness and searching of the true style are past, suddenly a marvelous style, her style reveals. Cut to the chase, simple yet visual on the descriptions, tapping on the senses without seeking the Nin-like seducing and engaging, but efectively getting quick and sure, as if senses were keys on her keyboard. The sneer to some of the characters is evident and delightful, just as her matter-of-fact, crude description of things most authors rather not talk about. Have to love officer Anna-Maria Mella, pregnant cop who has to pee constantly, and she doesn't hide it. Yeah, I'm interrogating you, but now I gara stop because I gara hit the can. Life is not perfect and the little princesses are annoying and disliked, and it's right there. Her style, clean cut and honest, delves into the human cesspool of emotions. Hatred that nurtures inside, revenge that's enjoyed greatly, annoyance that's expressed in the paper, without a regret of what the Big Reader will think of it. In her pages you get that distinct feeling that Ms. Larsson wrote this for herself, not for the big audience, and that makes it far richer. It is not a people pleasing work, with - oh well - there must be a hot guy and a hut girl and a hot sex scene because that's what people likes to read, no. Ms. Larsson made it clear she is the one she wants to please, and if you like it, good, if not, there are plenty of books in the bookstore, you can always pick something else. Amazing.
In her narrative, she also keeps on a rollercoaster as she plays her chips to sell you that this is the culprit, then sell you another story, and give you that motive, then makes it clear who is the culprit, and you feel cheated for having that revealed before the end, when BAM! Yeah baby, Momma still had a card under her sleeve. Do not pretend to see her story through. Do not think you know. She's that grand.
The book flows basically on three branches that weave together. There's Rebecka Martinsson's branch. She's the lawyer, the "expensive suit" and one of our "solve the mistery" girls. Her entourage starts including the law firm she works in, but then moves as a basically unattached piece in the Kiruna scene, with connections to her old friends, many of which are not happy to see her. Quite a change from the Disney-heroine, surrounded by loving people eager to help her. Rebecka has trouble, in the way she was written, finding her role in the story. Shall she leave it all, shall she dig into it? She ends up going where she's lead and finding out half of the story. Another branch, and the finder of the other half is in the always amazing Anna-Maria Mella, the pregnant cop with a crude tong and a hard attitude. She doesn't even blink constantly radiating that "look, I have three kids, a husband and I'm very pregnant. You wanna mess with me, think hard because I have no patience left for your stunts"-vibe. You don't wanna find yourself on the wrong end of this small, unattractive lady. Her character is strong and far more defined than Rebecka's which makes it clear that Mr. Larsson did intend to make Rebecka a more pliable character, infusing her with a much weaker sense of self on purpose. Why? Hnnn...
The third branch is the Kiruna branch, which includes, basically, the congregation of Kiruna, mixing the victim and then the whole congregation, in an amazing tile work kaleidoscope of fairly homogenic elements that move guided by a distinctive head, exhuding the feeling of a damned town spelled into a quite yet dangerous dormant zombie. The multiple characters, small and big, some a bit more friendly, some a bit more bitter, some quite plain and silent, create a character that looms over the story, shadowed. ghosted, suggested, implied above and under the facts and circumstances, in the escense of the motivations: Kiruna. City and population seem to breathe and beat, wax and wane separating into pieces, breaking into geography and habitants only to mesh back again into a single identity. Kiruna is alive, but then is inanimated, all at once, both in subsequent moments, mingled and yuxtaposed, yet always superposed to the text, present even if not directly issued.
The interaction is fluent and realistic, detaching from the common authors' assuption that the characters have all the time in the world to wrap around the plot. (Kind of like the SATC girls, who, inspite of being professionals, have an incredible amount of time to go out, have affairs and stay at home heartbroken... or fly to Mexico on a whim.) Here there are realistic time limitations and realistic stretching of minutes and spare time to get things done. Finally a story that does sounds like life.
Ms. Larsson sets her foot firmly in her style, and even allows herself to make the reader jump in his or her seat, plays a practical joke and laughs at you in your face, reminding you once again, that this is for her own pleasure, you are just audience to her private show.
The book caught me and now I'm a word-junkie, desperate to get my next fix, roaming bookstore after bookstore for the next one and the next one.
This is a book I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone.
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